Windows update error message (with a question and a fix)

I have a client which is having a problem running Windows Update on a Windows
SBS 2003 everytime I click on Windows Update after 10secs it comes back with
a message "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage" tried google to find
a fix but everything I've tried does not seem to work. So today I decided to
ghost the sever drive on to a old 80GB to have a backup just incase something
happens it took 30mins to ghost then I tried booting from the new drive to
see if it would boot and was all good. The funny thing is that when it booted
I tried Windows Update and it worked fine. so I plugged the old drive in and
did a chkdsk /f /r when it got to stage 4 of 5 the computer locked up solid
hdd light and could not turn numlock off or on. Any ideas on how to fix or
should I just get a new HDD and re ghost?? Regards.